concentration camp

noun

: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard

—used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners

The Nazi soldiers hauled [Mordechai] Strigler off to a concentration camp, and carved swastikas into his cheeks and forehead with a razor blade. Over the next five years, he was sent from one concentration camp or slave-labor camp to another.

—David Remnick

She ended up dying in a concentration camp, just a few months before she would have been liberated.

—Marilyn Reynolds

The V2 killed thousands of British civilians while 20,000 concentration camp inmates died as slave labourers during its manufacture in the closing stages of the second world war.

—Anna Tomforde et al.

see also death camp

Examples of concentration camp in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The show also sees Watkins expose Gein to disturbing material, such as photos from concentration camps and books about notorious Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch (played by Vicky Krieps), who, as Gein would go on to do, allegedly collected human skin and body parts. —Allison Degrushe, Entertainment Weekly, 7 Oct. 2025

The wife of the commander at one of Germany’s largest Nazi concentration camps allegedly had a desire to own objects made of human skin, per The Conversation. —Emily Blackwood, PEOPLE, 7 Oct. 2025

Klima lived an incredible, principled life, having survived both the Nazi concentration camp at Terezin as a boy, and post-1968 Soviet repression in Czechoslovakia. —Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub, 6 Oct. 2025

In January 2024, after coming under fire for reposting an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, Musk visited Nazi concentration camps in Europe. —Hadas Gold, CNN Money, 29 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for concentration camp

• amp
• champ
• clamp
• cramp
• damp
• gamp
• lamp
• ramp
• samp
• scamp
• stamp
• tamp

Kids Definition

concentration camp

noun

: a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained